Hostgator was fantastic until they were bought out by EIG. After that, they began to go downhill steadily - 1 minute live chat waits turned into 45 minutes and ticket replies went from 1 hour to 12 hours, with most replies being "We don't know".

Last year, my website went down due to a viral traffic burst and Hostgator gave me no warning. I spent hours on live chat and lodging tickets and their final reply was basically "We can't do anything, maybe you should clean up your site." They didn't offer any help, they didn't even offer to upsell (which I would've happily done, desperate as I was, losing hundreds of dollars).

I did some research and moved over to my own cloud server on Siteground. They are fantastic! 10 second live chat wait times, 15 minute ticket times and very knowledgeable staff. My second choice was WP Engine, but due to the high cost of servers, Siteground was a better price.

I now warn everyone away from EIG owned hosting companies - Hostgator, Bluehost, Hostmonster and a stack of others.

Also, it's good practice to have your domain registered at a different place than your hosting.

Why is it a good idea to have your domain at a different place than your hosting? I did at one point of time, until they both merged Godaddy bought over the smaller company.

EDIT: I never had the intention of having my domain and the hosting on different providers to begin with. Just that hosting was cheaper on one and the domain on the other. And I was a affiliate newbie back then, so didn't want to spend much on website stuff.

There are a variety of reasons, but I think this quote sums the main ones up:

"Disreputable hosting companies can hold your domain name ransom if you decide you want to switch to a rival hosting company. They can use the advertisement of a free domain name to lure you in and keep you trapped as their customer by making it very inconvenient to switch. Some web hosts may even keep the domain name if you cancel your hosting account. Since your domain name is part of your branding and an essential piece of your site, this leaves you little choice but to stick with the web host you originally wanted to leave. Also keep in mind that a “free” domain name may only be free for the first year. After that, the web host may charge an unfair price. Always be sure to check what price your domain name renews at. Web hosts can often be more expensive than via a domain registrar." via How to Get Online

It was more expensive at the hosting site that's the reason I bought the domain name elsewhere even though the first year was free. But the ransom thing was a major moment. Never expected any of them to stoop that low.

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